Page 61 of The Stolen Heir
When it is my turn, I wash my hot face primly and decline to remove my dress.
We fly through another day and night. At the next camp, we eat more cheese and bread and sleep under the stars of a meadow. I find duck eggs, and Tiernan fries them with wild onions. Oak talks some about the mortal world and his first year there, when he used magic in foolish ways and nearly got himself and his sister into a lot of trouble.
The third night, we camp in an abandoned building. The air has grown chill, and we make a fire of cardboard and a few planks of wood.
Oak stretches out beside it, arching his back like a preening cat. “Wren, tell us something about your life, if you will.”
Tiernan shakes his head, as though he thinks I won’t do it.
His expression decides me. I stumble over the words in the beginning, but I give them the tale of the glaistig and her victims. In part, I suppose, to be contrary. To see if they will fault me for helping mortals and cheating one of the Folk out of her due. But they listen and even laugh at the times I get the better of her. When I am done talking, I feel strangely lighter.
Across the fire, the prince watches me, reflected flames flickering in his unreadable eyes.
Forgive me, I think.Let me come with you.
The following afternoon, Tiernan dons Oak’s golden scale mail and sets off on his own, to set a false trail. We have a meeting place not far from the Undry Market, and I realize that I will have only one more night to persuade them to allow me to stay.
As we fly, I try to put together my arguments. I consider speaking them into Oak’s ear as he can hardly escape me, but the wind would snatch my words. A faint drizzle dampens our clothes and chills our skin.
As the sun begins to set, I see a darkness that is not night coming on. Clouds form in the distance, billowing upward and barreling outward, turning the sky a sickly greenish gray. Inside, I can see the flicker of lightning. They seem to reach into the stratosphere, the top of the clouds in a shape like an anvil.
And beneath it, wind whirls, tornadoes forming.
I give a cry, which is whipped away. Oak wheels the ragwort horse downward as the air around us becomes thick. We plunge into the fog of clouds, their wet, heavy mist sinking into my lungs. The steed shivers beneath us. And then, without warning, the ragwort horse dips sharply, then drops.
We plummet through the sky, the speed of our descent shoving the scream back into my mouth. All I can do is hang on to the solid mass of Oak’s body and wrap my arms around him as tightly as they will go. Thunder booms in my ears.
We plunge into a sheet of rain. It knocks us around, slicking our fingers and hair, making holding on difficult with everything so slippery. Coward that I am, I close my eyes and press my face into the prince’s back.
“Wren,” he shouts, a warning. I look up just before we hit the ground.
I am thrown off into mud, my breath knocked out of me. The ragwort steed crumbles away to the dried stalk of a plant under my bruised palms.
Everything hurts, but with a dull sort of pain that doesn’t get worse when I move. Nothing seems broken.
Standing shakily, I reach out a hand to help Oak up. He takes it, levering himself to his feet. His golden hair is dark with rain, his lashes spiky with it. His clothes are soaked through. His scraped knee is bleeding sluggishly.
He touches my cheek lightly with his fingers. “You—I thought—”
I stare up into his eyes, puzzled by his expression.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
I shake my head.
The prince turns away from me abruptly. “We need to get to the meeting spot,” he says. “It can’t be far.”
“We need to find shelter.” I have to shout to be heard. Above us, lightning cuts through the sky, striking into the woods just beyond us. Thunder cracks, and I see a dim thread of smoke curl upward from the site of the hit before the rain douses the fire. “We can find Tiernan when the storm lets up.”
“At least let’s walk in that direction,” Oak says, lifting his pack and throwing it over one shoulder. Ducking his head against the storm, he walks deeper into the woods, using the trees for cover. He doesn’t look back to see if I follow.
We go on like that for a while before I see a promising area to stop.
“There.” I point at an area with several large rocks, not far from where the soil dips down into a ravine. There are two trees, less than six feet apart, with branches reaching toward one another. “We can make a lean-to.”
He gives an exhausted sigh. “I suppose you are the expert. Tell me what I need to do.”
“We find two huge sticks,” I say, measuring with my hands. “Basically, as long as you are tall. They have to extend past the branches.”